Has it been eight years already?
And does the world really look — or feel — all that different?
Actually, it doesn’t, which is part of the problem.
Okay, the inconvenience that is airport security found a way, post-9/11, to become yet more inconvenient. And in the absence of repeats of the 9/11 attacks perpetrated using hijacked domestic flights, it could be argued that the heightened security measures have served their purpose and foiled would-be attackers. Or it could simply be a sign that the enemy in this fight has simply opted to switch tactics — Mohammed Atta and his cronies may well have been one-trick ponies in a couple of different senses of the term. We meekly doff our jackets and shoes to pass through airport security, submitting each digital device for careful scrutiny as we drain the last errant drop of water from our plastic bottles…but are we really any safer from Terrorism because of it? Or are we still every bit as vulnerable, with the added inconvenience of having to re-tie our shoes once we finally make it into the departure lounge?
Yes, it’s far less likely that someone is going to sneak a box cutter onto a plane anymore…but have we done anything to abate the culture of fearful passivity that is characteristic of modern air travel? Not really…we’ve gone the other direction, if anything. A would-be hijacker might not be able to slash at the stewardesses anymore…but in the stale and compliant atmosphere of an airplane cabin, anyone willing to exert a sufficient quantity of violence can gain control, simply because violence itself is so stark a departure from the usual sterile state of passengers party to air travel. Air travel today is all about standing where one is told to stand, walking where and when one is told to walk, sitting where one is assigned to sit, and using (or stowing) electronic devices when one is permitted to use them (or told to stow them). Airplane passengers are even told when to eat and drink, though most probably do not notice that a strict consumption schedule is being imposed on them, so glad are they for even a half-glass of Sprite.
Not that anything gets served in glass on an airplane; it’s all plastic these days. Glass can be turned into a weapon; plastic not so much. That said, try and get a plastic knife on an airplane these days.
But setting aside the inconveniences of the airport for a moment, has anything changed in society in a way in which it should have? Have we become more cognizant of the threat posed by terrorism? Have we become more aware that there are people in the world with whom we share no common values, and who (moreover) regard our values as a perversion to be wiped out? Have we come to understand again that there are such things as enemies who cannot be bargained or reasoned with, rather than seeing everyone as victims to whom we have not sufficiently apologized yet, or as troubled souls we have not sufficiently empathized with yet? Have we come to realize that some cultures may in fact be better than others, by various objective measures, and that some cultures simply do not mix well — if at all — with others?
In every case: no, we have not. If anything, we’ve gone (again) in the other direction. We shout all the louder that the real terrorists are the soldiers, the generals, and the government officials who approve the deployment thereof. We cling to the ideal of multiculturalism and profess our unyielding belief in the intrinsic value of all cultures, if not our unfailing belief in the “better-than-ours-ness” of all other cultures save our own. We do not acknowledge enemies, except those with whom we disagree politically; the idea that some people cannot be reasoned or emoted with is foreign to us, and we give it no thought whatsoever. We welcome into our nations people from lands and cultures that are, by and large, entirely incompatible…and then blame ourselves when they commit crimes, torch automobiles, or attempt to bully other cultures or religious groups.
And we rush — we out and out scramble — to sweep any mention of Islam under the rug. Nineteen Muslims perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, and did so in the name of Muhammed, Allah, and the Islamic faith. Yet today, when a Muslim father brutally murders his teenaged daughter, for the “crime” of refusing to wear a headscarf or for hanging out with a boy, we rush to say that the murder was not an honour killing, and had nothing at all to do with the father’s particular Religion. When a bunch of Danish cartoonists put together a compilation of cartoons which poke fun, to varying degrees, at Muhammed (Islam’s “prophet”), every North American publication falls over itself in the rush to state, louder than all its competitors, that it will not be running the images anywhere in its pages out of respect for Islam. And if any publication in fact has the temerity to run the cartoons, said publication quickly finds itself on the business end of a lawsuit or, in the Canadian example, a CHRC section 13 complaint…while the rest of us click our tongues and shrug, noting that the publication(s) in question should have known better than to run something so offensive to religion. We then go and get our daily dose of Starbucks and head off to the art gallery, to view the latest avant garde depiction of Jesus realized entirely through the medium of urine and feces…on canvas.
In the end, whether we’re talking about the CHRC or the FAA, what has happened in the post-9/11 world, and especially in post-9/11 North America is that government has gotten bigger, and that people have started looking to the government to do more. Worse still, we’ve accepted increased government invasiveness and penetration into areas of society. The Ezra Levant case would never have been heard by the CHRC in a pre-9/11 world; such a thing would have seemed as strange as submitting one’s shoes to the frowning airport security matron for chemical analysis would have in that same era.
The lesson of 9/11 should have been, as Mark Steyn notes, that the average individual is on the front line against terror. Terrorism is like that: it doesn’t distinguish between soldiers and civilians, and treats both as valid targets. The lesson of 9/11 should have been that individuals should have taken greater responsibility both in matters of security and vigilance, and in the day-to-day conduct of their own lives. The lesson of 9/11 should have been that the government is not, and cannot be, the principal means of defence against terror.
Instead, 9/11 has seemingly led us to an era in which the individual looks to the government for damn near everything.
Not that this is all that surprising. The human tendency is to desire — if not to try outright — to repeat the errors of history. Appeasement — trying to, various, buy off or otherwise soothe one’s mortal enemy — seems to be the persistent temptation of every generation, at least since the start of the 20th century. The previous model, as exemplified by Charles Martel and many others, has fallen out of favour.
Update: I just realized that Google, which is always ready to mark occasions celebrating progressive artistes and whatnot with funny little permutations of its logo, is running the standard Google banner today. No special marker for the Twin Towers. Bing is little better, and its banner image appears to be New Zealand for the day. That said, at least Bing provides a link to the Tribute in Light. Yahoo! also isn’t offering much, though there are a few 9/11-related stories in their newsfeeds.
